Latitude Zero: Stauder's Epic Equatorial Photo Journey

LATITUDE ZERO BOOK

In 1999, after completing an intensive six-week filmmaking course at NYU, I felt a deep urge to slow down and reevaluate my frenetic life. My final short film, NO Beginning NO End, was a poetic journey through Manhattan, rich with circular imagery. Carrying a 16mm Arriflex with its heavy battery pack strapped around my waist, sparked a shift within me. I had grown weary of editor dictates and rediscovered my lyrical self, reigniting my passion that first led me to pick up a camera—to immerse myself in my vision and witness LIFE in its raw form. I grabbed my eclectic collection of analog cameras and embarked on an epic circular journey to create a living map of the world at the dawn of the third millennium. All I needed was a soul-slaking red 'thread'...

As my gaze intensified on the world map, my eyes landed on the equator, the red line that effortlessly stitched together geopolitical hotbeds like Colombia, Indonesia, Somalia, and the DRC, places steeped in history. My explorer-documentary instincts kicked in. Without hesitation, I packed up my Parisian studio, sent everything back to my parents' farm, and flew to Brazil with nothing but two bricks of Tri-X film, empty journals, and a stack of topographical maps—ready for a life without keys. If the world was my oyster, the equator became my pearl.

My book, Latitude Zero, is a poetic visual rhapsody dedicated to the equatorial people who graciously shared their homes, hearths, and humor, emboldening my westward journey around the equator, starting in Macapa, Brazil in 2000 and ending in São Tomé in 2003. Chasing sunsets and living fully in the present, I freelanced for various editorial publications to cover immediate expenses while staying within my 1° North – 1° South bandwidth. This 2-degree zone became my sacred space to document the people and landscapes of the equator at the turn of the millennium. I knew neither the landscape, the people, nor I would remain the same.

Finding a publisher took five years and several maquettes. Disenchanted, I discarded all versions and created a homemade tome from my entire contact sheet collection (over 350 rolls of film). I cut out every xeroxed contact image that resonated with me and pasted them into a double flip book designed to emphasize circumnavigating the world. You could pick it up, start anywhere, and turn it around and around, emphasizing a journey with no end or beginning. Maarten Schilt and Teun van der Heijden in Amsterdam embraced the concept. Maarten brought his publishing expertise, paired with a deep appreciation for B&W images that tell a compelling story, while Teun’s uncanny design skills helped incorporate elements of my journals and refine the book’s editing rhythm. Serendipitously, I met Paul Theroux, an acclaimed American writer and fellow explorer, in a border town in Ecuador with Colombia in 2001. We kept in touch, and his forewords grace both sides of my award-winning flip book. The first 100 copies are a limited edition, each including a signed print and book, both numbered and treasured inside a streamlined slipcase. The regular version is the unique double flip book. Please CONTACT me if you’re interested.

By June 2010, the book finally hit the shelves, the same month and year my son, Konrad Jean-Sebastien Troupin, was born in Thailand. Motherhood in Bangkok, coupled with the excruciating traffic jams while finding exhibition and lecture venues in Asia, consumed me. Three years later, we moved to Kinshasa so my Belgian agronomist husband could complete his remarkable 40-year career at the same bend in the Congo River where we met during my equatorial journey.

I was honored to be a guest speaker at TEDx in 2010 dedicated to the theme, EXPLORE, and at the Royal Geographic Society in Hong Kong, Explorers Club in NYC, Mountain Film Festival in Telluride among other lectures, exhibits and press before and after this pivotal year.

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Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928) is a black-and-white animated short film that is considered a landmark in animation history. The film stars Mickey Mouse in his first sound appearance and helped to usher in the era of synchronized sound cartoons. Steamboat Willie remains an iconic piece of popular culture today.

Hasui Kawase(May 18, 1883 – November 7, 1957) was a prominent Japanese painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and one of the chief printmakers in the shin-hanga ("new prints") movement.

Kawase worked almost exclusively on landscape and townscape prints based on sketches he made in Tokyo and during travels around Japan. However, his prints are not merely meishō (famous places) prints that are typical of earlier ukiyo-e masters such as Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Kawase's prints feature locales that are tranquil and obscure in urbanizing Japan.

In 1923 there was a great earthquake in Japan that destroyed most of his artwork.

Alphonse Legros(8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911), painter, etcher and sculptor was born in Dijon.

As he had casually picked up the art of etching by watching a comrade in Paris working at a commercial engraving, so he began the making of medals after a walk in the British Museum, studying the masterpieces of Pisanello, and a visit to the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. Legros, considered the traditional journey to Italy a very important part of artistic training, and in order that his students should have the benefit of such study he devoted a part of his salary to augment the income available for a travelling studentship. His later works, after he resigned his professorship in 1892, were more in the free and ardent manner of his early days—imaginative landscapes, castles in Spain, and farms in Burgundy, etchings like the series of "The Triumph of Death," and the sculptured fountains for the gardens of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey.

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